


Sharing Space, Sharing Sleep

by Ray_Writes



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:53:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27975430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ray_Writes/pseuds/Ray_Writes
Summary: Laurel and Oliver spend a night in the bunker.
Relationships: Laurel Lance/Oliver Queen
Comments: 15
Kudos: 29
Collections: Lauriver Holidays 2020





	Sharing Space, Sharing Sleep

**Author's Note:**

> This fic could be seen as being in the same universe as my previous day's submission, just ten years on. I hope you enjoy!

The problem with a secret basement floor that was only accessible from the elevator was that it was only accessible if the elevator worked. And sometimes that just didn’t happen.

She really wished it had decided to stop working _after_ she and Ollie had gone home for the night, though.

“Still nothing?”

Laurel watched as Oliver prodded the button again with his finger while she held her phone flashlight aloft for him to see. The button didn’t even light to indicate the elevator had been called. “Nope.”

“Okay. Do we want to try the circuit breaker in case it’s not the storm? What are our options?”

“It’s definitely the storm,” Oliver decided. And he was right, probably, but she frowned anyway. “I can try prying the elevator doors open, going through the ceiling hatch and using a grapple arrow to get up to the doors on the first floor.”

“You wouldn’t have anywhere to stand to get leverage to pry those open,” she pointed out. “And didn’t Cisco add that magnetized thing to the doors after Curtis came down here?”

“Right. So they’re not gonna open without the access code, which we can’t enter in without power.” He backed away from the elevator, hands resting at his waist. “Sometimes there’s such a thing as too much security.”

“Curtis,” she repeated, and in the limited light from the phone, she saw his grimace. Laurel checked it. “Well, it looks like the cell towers are down, so no chance of calling for a rescue. I’m also on 32% battery.”

“You can shut it off,” he told her. “We’ll be fine.”

She wondered if there had been nights on the island spent in pitch blackness because a fire wasn’t possible. In any case, he was right; it was just the two of them down here, so they were perfectly safe. Laurel shut off her phone and followed the sound of his footsteps and the shadowy outline of his broad back towards the center of the room. It would be best to sit down and get comfortable. Who knew how long they would be stuck without power? The storm had gotten quite intense before they’d been forced to head in from patrol, and if a power line was down it wasn’t likely to get fixed very quickly on Christmas Eve when most people were at home enjoying time with loved ones.

Neither Laurel or Oliver had had that on their agenda for the evening. Sara was still away with the Legends, and she hadn’t seen her mother since last spring and her dad’s funeral. Oliver, on the other hand, had no plans since Thea had gone away to meet Roy for the holidays and Felicity had Hanukkah plans with Detective Malone. It had given John the night off to be with his wife and twins, so really they were doing a good deed rather than simply distracting themselves from their relatively empty personal lives.

Her boot connected with the step up onto the platform, and Laurel stumbles a little, only for Oliver’s arms to catch and steady her.

“You alright?”

“Yeah, just came a little sooner than I thought.” She forced an easy smile, not sure why she bothered since he couldn’t see it, and reluctantly pulled away from his hold. Laurel felt along the table’s edge until she reached one of the chairs pushed into it and pulled it back out to take a seat. “Well.”

“Well,” Oliver echoed, by the sounds of it sitting not quite across from her several feet away in his own chair.

She tried to think of something, anything to say. There was a bubble of nerves in her gut that wouldn’t let her focus. It had always been that way with Ollie. Sometimes more intense, sometimes less. Lately, it had been more.

She told herself several times a day that it didn’t matter that he was single and had been for months, that the two of them were working together better than ever in both the field and their professional careers. He didn’t have any sort of feelings for her anymore, and if she ever indicated she did for him, it would only make things strained between them again. And she didn’t want that.

It wouldn’t be good for them or for the continued protection of the city if the specter of her feelings started hanging between them again. Though as she thought about their current situation, she couldn’t help a small snort leaving her.

“Something funny?” Oliver asked.

“Not exactly. Just thinking, you know, what all the criminals would say if they could see us now… trapped in our own base.”

There was a pause, then Oliver let out his own low chuckle. “Yeah, they’d consider that their Christmas gift, probably.”

“Hm.” Laurel looked down. “You know, it’s sad, but I can’t actually remember the last Christmas present I’ve given anyone? I guess I’m kind of a Scrooge.”

“You didn’t have a lot of reasons to celebrate the last several,” Oliver pointed out. “I’m not doing any better on that front than you. At least you saved all our lives last year.” He was silent for a moment, then she heard him ask, “What was the last thing I ever got you?”

 _A kiss on the cheek_ , she thought, the memory of it vivid enough it felt imprinted. Though she quickly realized the next-closest answer wasn’t any better. So she lied. “Uh, you know, it was so long ago I don’t know if I remember.”

“Ow,” Oliver replied. “Okay, maybe it was a while ago, but you kind of have to discount five of those years.”

“True.”

“And 2006 isn’t — it’s a decade. That’s not so long when you cut that in half,” he continued to excuse. “What did I get you that year? I could swear — wait, was it…” He trailed off, probably realizing he’d just stepped on a metaphorical land mine.

“A black lace nightie?” Laurel finished for him. “Yeah.”

“ _Right_.”

She could remember it perfectly. Opening it in his room on Christmas Eve ten years ago. He’d told her she wouldn’t want to wait for Christmas Day in front of her family with such mischief in his eyes she’d known it had to be something risqué. The blush that had risen to her cheeks as she’d taken it out of the box, the way he’d licked his lips as she held it up to herself. She’d felt powerful and desired and more like a woman then than she’d had before, and she hadn’t wasted time making use of his gift.

“I don’t have it anymore,” she told him, the bluntness helping tear herself out of those recollections before she went too far. “I think I burned it in 2010.”

“Hm.”

“I probably was drunk and hating your guts,” she confessed. It was somehow both better and worse that she couldn’t see his face right now.

“Well, here’s to neither of those things being true anymore,” Oliver said, and the cheer in his tone didn’t sound too forced.

“Definitely,” she agreed. They lapsed into a silence that somehow wasn’t unbearable. She supposed they’d been through all of that together once and reminiscing on it wasn’t going to be worse than living it.

The temperature had to have been falling all the while since the power failed, but it was becoming noticeable now. Laurel folded her arms over her chest and did her best not to shiver.

“Any idea what time it is?”

“It was past two when we got back from patrol, I think,” Oliver answered.

Laurel nodded, then her mouth opened in a yawn. “Pretty late. We’re probably sleeping down here.”

“Yeah.” She heard him shift, then ease up from the chair. By now she could make out a solid outline of him even in the darkness. “We’ve got the medical cot. You can have that. I’ll use one of the tables.”

She frowned and stood as well. “Ollie, you’re not using one of the tables.”

“Why not?”

“They’re not beds, for one thing.” She reaches out and touched one of the metal surfaces, immediately drawing her hand away. “Also, they’re freezing.”

“I’m not cold.”

“Well, I am,” she insisted. “You’ll be freezing by the morning if you sleep on one of these.” It was just science, hard-earned island skills or no. He couldn’t stop a metal table from leeching the heat from his body.

“Then what do you suggest?” He asked, his arms lifting and falling.

She was stumped for a moment. They only had the one medical cot — really, they ought to think about investing in another one in case more than one of them was injured. But for now… “We’ll have to share.”

“You and me?” He asked. It didn’t sound disgusted, at least, just uncertain. “We might break it.”

Laurel shook her head. “These things have weight capacities of 500, 600 pounds usually. We’ll be fine.”

“Will we fit?” He asked next.

“I think we can make it work.” She motioned with her arm for him to follow her down to the cot. Laurel pulled the blankets back, then gestured for him to get on.”

“Ladies first?”

“Ollie, it’s gonna be way easier for me to try fitting around you than vice versa.”

“Fair enough.” He hesitated, then bent down to unlace his boots, climbing in and shifting as far to the other side as possible, his back to the railing.

Laurel kicked off her own boots, then climbed in as well. It was a little awkward, and she teetered on her knees for a moment.

His hands reached out to hold her hips and steady her, and Laurel sucked in a breath. “Thanks,” she managed.

“No problem.”

Laurel shifted so that she was lying down. They were a little bulky up top, so she unzipped her coat and shrugged it off, laying it on top of the blanket. Oliver did likewise. Then she drew the blanket up and settled down on her side, her back to Oliver’s chest.

How many times had they laid like this? Well, not really like this. Laurel had never done everything she could to remain as far forward as possible so that they were just barely touching; Oliver had never held his arms ramrod straight at his sides in a way that had to be uncomfortable.

Laurel thought for a moment, then looked over her shoulder. “Hey, Ollie?”

“Yeah?”

“Merry Christmas, okay?”

She thought she could just make out the curve of his smile in the dark. His left arm shifted off his leg to brush against her back as he moved it to curl over his chest. “Merry Christmas, Laurel.”

She smiled back and faced forward again, letting her eyes close. It was strange, knowing they were in a bed together again after how many years, but comforting. Familiar. Safe. So her breathing evened out, and she drifted off to sleep.

\---

Oliver had been cold, even if he hadn’t wanted to admit it. That much was obvious when he awoke to find he had wrapped himself around every bit of Laurel he could possibly reach like an amorphous heat-seeking amoeba.

Or maybe it was just her.

He’d missed this feeling. Her slow, even breathing, the smell of her hair where his nose was pressed into her neck, the curves of her body only accentuated with the muscle tone she’d developed in the years since they’d last been this close. A voice in the back of his head that had grown louder and louder over the last several months couldn’t help asking why he’d ever let the distance come between them, how he couldn’t have realized the good thing they’d had.

One of her legs had snuck between his, and her right hand resting on his thigh. At least this hadn’t just been his doing. Beyond their tangled pile of limbs and blankets, Oliver could tell the base was just as frigid as it had been growing the previous night, but he could scarcely recall feeling warmer than now.

There was a low _hum_ , and then the lights and computers kicked back on at full brightness. Laurel startled, groaned, then turned roughly in his embrace to bury her head into his chest. He couldn’t quite stop a fond chuckle from escaping, even though he knew making her aware of their current situation was perhaps not the best idea.

Sure enough, she froze before slowly lifting her head. Her hair was half-falling in her face, and he couldn’t think of anything for a moment except how adorable that was.

“Um… morning.”

“Morning,” he greeted back. “Christmas morning, actually.”

“Right.” Laurel looked back, one of her hands bracing against his chest for a moment. “I guess we’re free, huh?”

“Most likely.”

Neither of them moved for a moment. Then, her lips pressed together and her head ducked, Laurel slowly withdrew her leg and clambered off the hospital bed. Oliver did his best not to let his face fall and rolled to the other side to get out as well.

“Sorry about, uh,” Laurel was saying, her one arm gesturing to the bed as if her words were failing her, which was a rarity. “It’s really cold down here.”

“I’ll buy you a black lace parka for next year,” he offered before he could rethink it. He was terrible at joking around, what had made him throw _that_ out there?

Laurel scoffed, her head shaking, but her lips were undeniably drawn back in a smile. Oliver couldn’t hide a relieved and slightly proud grin at the sight, which pulled a short giggle from her as well.

It was thrilling to know that he could still be the one to bring this side out of her. It made his heart lighter in a way his favorite holiday hadn’t for a while now.

“Tell you what,” she said, slowly walking around the bed to his side. “I can’t think of anything to get you, so consider this an IOU.” Laurel rose onto her tiptoes and brushed his cheek with her lips. Goosebumps that had nothing to do with the temperature broke out all down his arms, and every hair on his body seemed to stand up straight. “Merry Christmas, Ollie.”

He had to clear his throat for a moment to make a reliable sound. “Merry Christmas.”

Laurel smiled again, then grabbed her coat and threw it around her shoulders, striding for the elevator. She hit the button and stepped inside when the door opened.

Oliver remained where he was, a goofy smile spreading across his face. Not exactly their shared Christmas from a decade ago, but he could remember now why he enjoyed the holiday with Laurel so much.


End file.
